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Past Presidents

Past Presidents

(Feb. 8, 1904 – May 14, 1964)

SAWYERS ALLEN CROWLEYState Bar President, 1949-1950

Allen Crowley was born on February 8, 1904, in Navarro County,
Texas. He received his education in the Kerens public schools and at
the University of Texas, from which he graduated in 1927 with an LL.B.
degree. He was admitted to the Bar that same year and began his
practice of the law in Fort Worth, where he lived until his death on
May 14, 1964. Crowley was quite successful as a trial lawyer and
specialized in the defense of damage suits and workmen's compensation
cases on behalf of insurance companies. Soon after he began to practice
in
Fort Worth, he helped to establish the Fort Worth Junior Bar
Association and served as one of its early presidents. Then in 1930 in
Fort Worth Crowley actively participated in the first convention of the
Texas Junior Bar, and in 1931 he was elected president of this
organization. Crowley served as president of the Tarrant County Bar in
1932. He was a member of several State Bar committees and served as a
director and vice-president before he was elected to the State Bar
presidency in 1949. As president, Crowley got the Bar dues raised by
means of a referendum in order to save the Bar from impending financial
collapse.

Crowley was a member of the American Bar, American Judicature
Society, American College of Trial Lawyers, Federation of Insurance
Counsel, and International Association of Insurance Counsel for which
he was serving as vice-president at the time of death in 1964. He also
belonged to the Tejas Club and once was president of the Fort Worth
Rotary Club. In 1929 Crowley married Zedau Bates of Fort Worth; and they
had one daughter and one son, George A. Crowley, who now practices law
in Fort Worth. Zedau Crowley died in 1942, and in 1946 Crowley married
Dovie Goodman of Midland County. To this second marriage was born a
daughter, Susan E. Crowley, who like her father and half-brother also
became a lawyer.